Her Red Nightmare
by ChloeSullivan
Summary: Buffy's life is crashing down around her, and all she wants is an escape. An angsty look at her decision to become a vampire. Buffy/Spike


Her Red Nightmare  
  
SUMMARY: This is based on the spoilers/rumors that Spike was trying to convince Buffy to let him turn her into a vampire. Sort of a 'what if' situation. An angsty look into Buffy's decision to cross over.  
RATING: Nothing too bad. I'd say PG-13  
DISCLAIMER: Joss Whedon owns all, I am but a mere fanfic writer. Don't sue me, as I have no money.  
  
~  
   
I can feel the jagged fangs tearing into my flesh; plunging beneath the first layer of dried, cracked skin, and then onward...down, down, down, until I become lost in my own red nightmare.  
   
My eyes are wide, open, alert, but I feel the little bit of life I have left slipping away, splashing his tounge and staining his lips a potent, stark red.  
   
Pain shoots through my spine but it is almost a welcome relief. It alerts me to the fact that my time left is limited, and soon he will have completed the task I sought him out for. I will be gone - left to the wind to float about listlessly as I please, or perhaps trapped in some dark vapid void where nothing else exists at all. Wherever the souls of the victims of the night go. I'm at the point where I don't really care. I just want to go somewheres - anywhere at all will do as long as I'm not Buffy Summers, the girl with the weight of the world on her shoulders. I realize I'm come to despise my own identity and the realm in which I exist.  
   
We are in his crib and I don't know quite how I ended up here. I do remember chopping some salad - tomatoes I think - and the knife was in my hand and I remember just cutting and cutting and cutting. I don't recall the blade slicing the vegetable more than once.  
   
And the last thing I remember is glancing up at the clock, and it was 6:00PM in the evening and I had barely started supper yet. And I remember that Mom always, always had supper prompt at 5:00PM without delay. She always insisted that Dawn and myself eat with her. As a family.  
   
How she would surely frown her stern, motherly frown at me all the way down from the Heavens if she could. Dawn is out of my sight and out of my control and has been for a long time. Right now I suspect she is out getting drunk or high or maybe both.  
   
And I can't even prepare dinner on time.  
   
The tomato stares up at me as if mocking this pathetic girl I have become. I used to be a warrior - defender of all that is good and noble in this world. Now the good are not so noble anymore and the effort it takes to defend them seems almost useless.  
   
The demons have already won. And they know it. They stare up at me with vengeful, gleaming eyes and they know I will fight them for as long as I live and then I will die. And that will be the end of that. So whether I defeat 1 or 20 by tomorrow is not the issue. More will come. They always do.  
   
There is no white picket fence at the end of a long journey. Fairytales lie.  
   
The knife hits my finger with a start and life pours out. It is red and flows nicely on the counter top and I wonder if it is even human anymore. Suddenly I want it out, I want it all out until my face turns pale as a sheet and then blue. My body will turn cold, like Angel's once was, and the most important part is I will finally be at peace again so I won't have to worry about getting 6PM suppers ready ever, ever again.  
   
This thought seems surprising pleasant, and in that split second I give up.  
   
Hey, one split second is enough to change the world.  
   
Believe me, I know.  
   
So I found myself walking and walking; not a thought flows through my head, only a destination. I arrive here quickly and I bang open the door with my superhuman strength. Our eyes meet and not a word is exchanged. We just know.  
   
It is time.  
   
And here I am.  
   
My body is beginning to grow limp from all the blood loss. He cradles me almost lovingly in his arms, and I believe for a second he really does love me; in a sick twisted way only a vampire can. The last few drops of what was known as Buffy Summers flow into his mouth, and he gives me this almost look of...regret.  
   
Because in this instance he knows I will never be the same again. I will never be Buffy; his Slayer, his immortal enemy and love all at once. Love will soon be beyond me as darkness creeps into my veins in place of the humanity that once was.  
   
No longer will my laughter ring of innocent youth - of pop culture references and sarcastic banter. Now there will be a dry crackle under it; hoarse and hidden yet still there.  
   
Precious seconds are only left before I must drink, and let death enter my veins so that a birth of sorts will arise. Only seconds.  
   
Dry tears caked with blood fall from my eyes and he tenderly wipes them away with his thumb. He is trying to offer me a bit of comfort but there is not much you can do when one is dying.  
   
I am oddly detached from my mortal body all of a sudden yet a word manages to escape my lips in a wobbly sentence.  
   
I don't quite remember what it is, but I see Spike getting up and leaving my blood soaked figure twisted in an unnatural angle. It must have been powerful because he murmurs something; and his voice is choked and strained and filled with blood as well.  
   
"I'm sorry."  
   
Final. And he can't even look at me because he knows I am dying. His entire 200+ year old body tremors with contempt and also fear; which is kind of strange considering he has been the willing cause of so many deaths over the years.  
   
Yet he will weep for me as I die.  
   
I used to think vampires got to the stage where they were beyond the point of caring as they watched their victims slither and die before them.  
   
Now I know better.  
   
His face crumbles and for once his age, his true age, is shown. All the horror and pain and suffering he has dealt with over the years has not even prepared him one bit. I wonder if you can ever 'prepare' for these kinds of things.  
   
My eyes finally close at last, and one of the final things I feel is his bloody tears mixing with my own. He was never very good with affection so I suppose it's his way of saying we are joined; now, and forever.  
   
He is letting me go, and that is probably the most unselfish thing he has ever done in his entire life.  
   
As my spirit starts to fade into the unknown, the last thing I notice is a tiny pile of ashes next to my body. 


End file.
